Canonical have become the first member to sign up to the Open Invention Network's new associate membership program. The Open Invention Network exists to acquire patents and license them royalty free to entities which, in turn, "agree not to assert their own patents against Linux or Linux-related applications." Current well-known companies involved with the OIN include Sony, IBM and Novell.

I agree its not very clear but from what i understood the licensee commits to not suing against linux (for patent infringement) and can use OIN patent pool royalty free whilst is more than that (maybe share there patents in the pool or helps actively to defend cases against linux) and there are the founding members.

Its not very clear but seems to me licensee=passive help (by not suing) while associate= active help (not clear maybe by sharing patents or exact details will be tailored for each associate)

IBM didn't sue Turbohercules over any software of Turbohercules, and Turbohercules sued IBM first. IBM's complaint against Turbohercules is similar to Apple's complaint against Pystar.

From the very article you linked, quoting the Turbohercules own CEO:

As many of you know, the company I founded to promote the Hercules open source mainframe emulator, TurboHercules SAS, has filed an antitrust complaint against IBM with the European Commission in Brussels. We are not asking that IBM be subjected to punishing fines or anything like that. We simply want IBM to agree to allow legitimate paying customers of its z/OS mainframe operating system to deploy that software on the hardware platforms of their choice – including, should they so choose, on low-cost servers using Intel or AMD microprocessors and Hercules.

The trouble is, IBM sells z/OS licenes to customers to allow said customers to run z/OS on IBM hardware. IBM is perfectly entitled to stipulate such conditions, since z/OS is IBM's software.

So Turbohercules sued IBM for "anti-trust", so IBM sued Turbohercules for running z/OS outside of the z/OS license terms. This really has very little to do with open source. Given the ruling in Apple vs Pystar, where Pystar were trying to run Apple's Mac OSX outside of Apple's licensing terms, wherein Apple won resoundingly, it would seem that Turbohercules don't have much of a leg to stand on. Turbohercules must respect IBM's license terms for z/OS, just as anyone else running software must respect the license terms set by the authors of that software, as is the law.

I wondering whether this has to do with WebM and the threats MPEG-LA are making regarding those who are looking to push WebM as an alternative to h264? Hopefully if the OIN become a strong force in the computer world that the destructive nature of patents will be eliminated.

I wondering whether this has to do with WebM and the threats MPEG-LA are making regarding those who are looking to push WebM as an alternative to h264? Hopefully if the OIN become a strong force in the computer world that the destructive nature of patents will be eliminated.

Possibly not. MPEG-LA is a patent pool, where they tried to collect all patents relating to a particular product (in this case, a video codec) in order (they say) to give "certainty" to parties implementing a video codec into their product. The idea is that all patents would be collected into the one pool, all patent owners would agree not to sue anyone who had a license for the patent pool, and all patent owners would get a cut.

MPEG LA "courted" On2 for many years, and On2 stubbornly resisted. On2 toook great pains to avoid MPEG-LA pool technologies, and also to get patents for its own technologies. They were evidently good enough at doing this such that for well over a decade MPEG-LA were never able to bring a lawsuit against On2, even while On2 refused to join the MPEG-LA patent pool.

Google have conducted a patent search on On2's VP8 codec, and Google say that they are very confident that the technologies within VP8 are clean (either they are covered by an On2 patent, or On2 applied for a patent but it was rejected for reasons of prior art rather than rejected because there was an existing patent).

Having said that, if MPEG-LA suddenly now come up with a patent pool ostensibly covering some technology in VP8, after all these years, then Google will have a very good case to sue MPEG-LA for attempted inteference with Google's business.

In any event, getting back to the topic, I doubt that OIN has any patent holdings relating to video codecs, given the long-running standoff between On2 and the rest (in MPEG-LA).

I wondering whether this has to do with WebM and the threats MPEG-LA are making regarding those who are looking to push WebM as an alternative to h264? Hopefully if the OIN become a strong force in the computer world that the destructive nature of patents will be eliminated.

After a little bit of digging, here is some backup on why I believe that this Canonical move into OIN has nothing at all to do with WebM and MPEG-LA:

ON2 Made a big deal about their codec's being "patent free" in that they had done the patent research and made sure their codec's didn't infringe any known patent they didn't own. This was long before the Google purchase. Their whole business model was "we can sell you this codec for far cheaper than the MPEG-LA license and we guarantee it doesn't infringe the MPEG-LA patent pool".

Personally I think MPEG-LA will keep blowing smoke and paying for Astroturf studies, but in the end they will never sue because they don't want to risk the patents in the pool being invalidated or providing court evidence that VP8 doesn't infringe MPEG-LA patents. If they sue and Google wins, bam the whole world shifts to VP8 and the MPEG-LA patent pool becomes worthless.